Identity theft and the fraudulent use of banking information have become rampant among various facets of the world's economy. Retailers and customers have increasing needs for simple, easy, and trustworthy point-of-sale transactions. Various efforts, e.g., as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,643 to Goreta et al. (hereby incorporated herein by reference), have been directed to approaches for transferring information. Other previous efforts for point-of-sale telephony-based transactions have used an ID associated with a telephone (such as an associated cell phone number or a bar label on a mobile telephone ID) as a tool for identifying the customer using the telephone.
Such previous efforts are useful to fulfill the desire of retailers and customers for easy and trustworthy point-of-sale transactions. However, the costs of implementing such point-of-sale transactions and others can inhibit their implementation and widespread use. In this regard, point-of-sale transactions continue to suffer from undesirable characteristics including those discussed above.